EDGEWATER, Fla. – Edgewater Mayor Diezel DePew on Saturday urged city residents impacted by recent flooding to reach out to him for help.
In a statement to social media, DePew promised that Edgewater city council members were committed to sorting out the flooding issue, asking for affected residents to reach out to him via email or by calling 386-843-2639 for assistance.
“My heart and soul go out to the residents impacted by tonight’s rain event. This city is aware and environment services are still out assessing and learning from what occurred,” DePew wrote. “Let this be known, we cannot keep letting this occur.”
DePew’s post included photographs of flooding in what appears to be the Florida Shores neighborhood. Submerged streets can be seen traversed by people in kayaks and on all-terrain vehicles. At one home, the garage had been outfitted with a flood barrier.
News 6 visited the neighborhood on Sunday afternoon. You can still feel the water as you walk across Brant Burchett and Allison Roberts’ yard.
The water, which soaked their porch, garage and nearly everything near 34th street and Umbrella Tree Drive in Edgewater after a heavy downpour Saturday evening.
“It’s terrifying your watching everything you worked your whole life for possibly getting washed away,” Roberts said.
The couple says even catfish and eels were swimming through their yard.
“There’s nothing you can do about it, so it does make you feel helpless, as well,” Roberts said.
Several other neighbors shared these photos with us saying they haven’t seen this type of flooding since Hurricane Ian.
Many people living in the Florida Shores community believe all of this new construction and development l is causing all their flooding problems.
“I understand everything changes growth is gonna happen, but sometimes we need to pump the breaks a little bit. Do a little bit more in-depth study. Just kind of sit back and analyze issues these changes can make,” Burchett said.
Mayor DePew said five-to-seven homes were impacted by the flooding this week.
Their last stormwater masterplan was implemented in 2014, but the mayor believes now it’s time for that to be updated.
“We did do a vulnerability assessment of Edgewater and indeed we are working on a stormwater plan. Simply after this I would say it’s just not enough. We need to look into any resources management style and we need to see if we possibly need some consulting engineers come in from the state and possibly to look at this issue,” Depew said.
Burchett and Roberts plan to voice their concerns to city leaders at their next meeting.
DePew said anybody is allowed to come up and give public comments during their meeting on Monday at 6 p.m. here city hall, however it must be related to an agenda item.
They’ll have a special meeting to solely discuss the flooding at a later date.
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